Search Marketing. What is it and Why You Need It.

Search Marketing. What is it and Why You Need It.

Search Marketing. What is it and Why You Need It.

08/08/2017Syed Ariz Hussain

Search Marketing. What it is and why you need it.

Search Engine Management used to be known as a broad umbrella term which incorporates a wide variety of practices which involves manipulation of advertisements and your own website content to drive traffic to your website. Over time, the industry has evolved to adopt the all-encompassing term of “search marketing” which defines the collective practices of SEO, which relies on using organic and unpaid results to drive traffic to your website, and SEM, which became known as the term which referred to using inorganic or paid means to garner search traffic.

Search Marketing is a term which encompasses a wide variety of techniques which includes search engine optimisation, keyword research, competitive analysis, PPC (Pay-Per-Click ads) which come under SEM and other services relative to search engines all in the hopes of increasing the visibility of your website and driving greater search traffic to your web pages.

Although, the focus of today’s blog post is not to talk to you about search engine optimization (you can check out our article on the fundamentals of search engine optimization here), It is a fundamental part of search marketing in general and I feel that writing a basic overview to help you build a workable base is necessary.

So what is search engine optimization?

SEO is the process of earning presence on search engines through organic/unpaid efforts. These are the ads which are found beneath the paid search ads and are known as organic results. When you enlist the help of a digital advertising agency such as MWM Studioz to manage your SEO, which is one of our top-notch services, you are telling us that your goal is to rank on the first page of Google’s search engine result pages (SERP’s) and that is only natural. Every brand or business wants to be front and center to the customer as all businesses know that their customer is not going to click through pages and pages of links to find the one link you want them to look at. Consumers will always go for the most relevant and easy option which, in most cases, will be available on the first page of the SERP’s. So this is where SEO comes in. It consists of primarily white hat tactics which include:

So now that you have a basic idea of what search engine optimization is, let’s talk about SEM or search engine marketing.

SEM, or search engine marketing, refers solely to paid search or creating advertisements and paying a specific amount for them when somebody clicks on them. Search Engine Marketing is regarded as one of the most effective means of growing your brand/business in the competitive marketplace of today. SEO can only go as far when all the businesses in the world are vying for the attention of many of the same people, so SEM can go a long way in promoting your business by giving you the best rankings and allowing you to grow your business to its utmost potential.

Keywords for Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing is a practice which involves advertisers bidding on specific keywords that you, the consumer, enter into the search bar on a search engine like Google or Bing. This gives the advertiser the opportunity to show their ads to you when you perform a search query which may include that specific keyword. These ads are known as PPC ads or Pay-Per-Click which mean that Google will show your advertisements to people making search queries with the keywords you have invested it, but it will only charge you when your ad is clicked on.

This is the chief difference between SEM and SEO and its greatest strength as well as PPC ads give the consumers who are ready and willing to purchase a product the quickest path to that product. This is why SEM is such a boon for companies that value growth. Moreover, the foundation of accomplishing massive growth lies in investing in appropriate keywords and for this; you need to conduct thorough keyword research.

Keyword Research is essential in identifying which keywords are the most relevant to what your business has to offer to consumers. Investing in keywords which have nothing to do with your business will have a negative effect as you will essentially be wasting money on irrelevant ads that have a very small probability of being clicked on.

Tools for Keyword Research:

Keyword research is an extremely important practice when it comes to effectively making use of search engine related tactics. Whether it is SEO or SEM, keyword research comes hand in hand as advertisers need to know what relevant keywords need to be targeted to maximize clicks.

The most popular keyword research tool by far would be Google Adwords, as it offers comprehensive data on which keywords you should target. Other tools include SEO profiler and WordStream’s proprietary keyword research tools.

Final Thoughts

Search Engine Marketing differs from Social Media Optimisation where SEO aims to provide organic and unpaid results, whereas SEM focuses on delivering advertisements to already motivated customers to provide them with a further incentive of immediately purchasing the product which they already desire, and this gives you paid or inorganic results.

A sophisticated blend of both of these techniques will ensure that your brand/business achieve the growth that it deserves.

Do you need an agency to fulfill all of your SEO and SEM needs? Comment below to get in touch with us today!